George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life eBook

The first Lord Holland, Horace Walpole, the Duke of
Queensberry, each a type of the society of the eighteenth
century; the unscrupulous politician, the cultivated
amateur and man of letters, the sportsman with half
the opera dancers in London in his pay—­of
all he was the closest friend. The most intimate
of them, the Duke of Queensberry, led an extravagant
and a dissipated life, in contrast with which Selwyn’s
was homely and simple. He could leave the gambling
table of the club to play with Mie Mie or a schoolboy
from Eton; while his friends were crippled by dice
and cards and became seekers after political places
by which they might live, he was prudent in his play
and neither ruined himself nor others. He had
a self-control and a sound sense, which were not common
in his generation; we see them in the tranquil, contemplative
eyes of Reynolds’s portraits, ready in a moment
to gleam with humour. By reason of his unfailing
good-nature, he was always at the service of a friend.
Himself without ambition, he watched men, not possessed
of his tact and ability, rise to positions which he
had never the least desire to fill. In an age
of great political bitterness and the strongest personal
antagonism he continued the tranquil tenor of his
way, amused and amusing, hardly ever put out except
by the illness or the misfortune of a friend.
“George Selwyn died this day se’night,”
wrote his friend Storer to Lord Auckland; “a
more good-natured man or a more pleasant one never,
I believe, existed. The loss is not only a private
one to his friends, but really a public one to society
in general."* Gaiety of temperament and sound sense,
a quick wit and a kind heart, sincerity and love of
society, culture without pedantry, a capacity to enjoy
the world in each stage of life: these are seldom
found united in one individual as they were in George
Selwyn, and he is thus for us perhaps the pleasantest
personality of English society in the eighteenth century.